101-Disc Box Set Marks Tenth Anniversary Of Opera Legend Luciano Pavarotti’s Passing
On 1 December, in observance of the tenth anniversary of opera legend Luciano Pavarotti’s passing, Decca/UMe will release Luciano Pavarotti: The Complete Opera Recordings, encompassing 95 CDs and 6 Blu-ray Audio discs. The voluminous 101-disc limited edition collection offers an exhaustive survey of Pavarotti’s Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips recordings plus two recordings made for EMI/Warner Classics: L’amico Fritz and Don Carlo.
Prior to his passing in 2007, the legendary tenor Luciano Pavarotti conquered the mainstream like no opera performer ever had, winning a devoted worldwide audience that embraced his charismatic personality and commanding talent. Pavarotti spent most of his five-and-a-half-decade career recording for the venerable Decca label, building a powerful body of recordings that showcased the singular magnificence of his one-of-a-kind voice. Together they created a legacy of one of the longest exclusive relationships between artist and record label.
Consequently, The Complete Opera Recordings spans the entire career of “The People’s Tenor,” presenting every role he ever performed, beginning with his debut recording of La Bohème in 1961, allowing critics, collectors and fans to fully appreciate Pavarotti’s exceptional achievements. In all, it features 34 complete operas plus a number of operas he recorded more than once: Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata; Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore; and Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci. Also included are Pavarotti’s stellar recordings of Verdi’s Requiem and Rossini’s Stabat Mater.
Every opera, each of which is packaged in its original jacket, is presented in the best possible audio quality, with many fully remastered at Abbey Road Studios under the supervision of former Decca engineers. 21 analogue recordings are now available as definitive 24-bit 96 KHZ transfers. Six of Pavarotti’s most iconic recordings – Donizetti: L’Elisir d’amore, Verdi: Rigoletto, Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor, Puccini: Turandot, Puccini: La Bohème and Puccini: Madama Butterfly – are presented in true 24-bit, studio quality masters on high fidelity Blu-ray discs.
Luciano Pavarotti: The Complete Opera Recordings‘ lavish packaging also includes a high-gloss laminated outer box and a 250-page hardback book with a new retrospective by James Jolly (Editor-in-chief, Grammophon), numerous photographs from Pavarotti’s career including recording session stills from the Decca archives, full recording information, vintage press clippings and reminiscences from collaborators such as Zubin Mehta and Mirella Freni. Libretti in original language and English translations, as well as synopses in English and German, will be available here prior to the box set’s release.
The 101-disc vinyl box set of Luciano Pavarotti: The Complete Opera Recordings will be released on 1 December. Pre-order it here.
UK English
Tony
December 10, 2017 at 1:15 am
I recently purchased the magnificent (partly) Pavarotti Complete Operas box set which is quite expensive when buying all these discs as a large set, especially with the significant postal cost to New Zealand. So, I was disappointed to find many errors in the set.
As I work my way through the set (currently having reached disc 28), I have not yet found any problems with the discs themselves. However, in the hard-back book and on the sleeves themselves, there are many errors.
A. Information regarding individual operas in the hard-back book
1. Page 67: Pavarotti’s name and character are missing from the cast list
2. P 82-83: The disc numbers are wrong
3. P 85: The first name on the cast list belongs to the previous opera
4. P 133: Rossini is listed as the composer of “Requiem” instead of Donizetti
5. P 137/157/165/221: Guglielmo Tell is the first of several operas that have no character descriptions in the cast list
6. P 151: The first name on the cast list belongs to a different opera
7. P 195: Leo Nucci’s name is not properly aligned
8. P 211: The first name in the cast list is missing the dotted line
9. P 215: The first name on the cast list belongs to a different opera
10. P 215: The second name on the cast list has no character description
11. P 215: The fourth name on the cast list has the wrong font for the description, and it has a redundant dotted line
B. Information on the disc spines and sleeves
1. Discs 24-25 are wrongly numbered on the spine
2. Discs 35-36 has “Donizetti: Maria Stuarda” on the spine instead of “Verdi: Luisa Miller”
3. Discs 76-77 – (Donizetti: L’Elisir D’Amore) has Pavarotti and Sutherland’s La Traviata characters at the top of the cast list on the back of the sleeve
4. Discs 90-91 has “Puccini: Manon Lescaut” on the spine instead of “Verdi: Rigoletto”
5. Disc 99 – Blu-ray, has the cast, chorus and orchestra listing for La Boheme on the back of the sleeve instead of that for Madama Butterfly
C. Problems in James Jolly’s essay in the hard-back book
1. The “Newly commissioned retrospective essay by James Jolly” is a rehash of the one written four years ago for volume 1 of Decca’s aborted “Pavarotti Edition”. Having bought that set in good faith, it has now been superseded by this new set and I have the earlier, redundant set as a considerable disappointing expense. This lazily produced essay also has several issues of grammar and style, as follows:
2. Page 5, Paragraph 3, Line 3: “. . . of the Italian operatic back into . . .” (word missing)
3. P6, paragraph 2: Redundant punctuation at the end
4. P8, paragraph 1, fourth-to-last line: “Pavarotti” should be “Pavarotti’s”
5. P10, final paragraph, line 3 “(opposite Sutherland and Bonynge)” is a lazy way of saying “(opposite Sutherland with Bonynge conducting)”
6. P11, paragraph 3, line 6: “Sutherland’s voice may have lost the ‘glint’ once so characteristic of her voice”. The double use of “voice” is poor.
7. P11, paragraph 4: Pagliacci was not a “new” role; Pavarotti had previously recorded it in 1977, which recording, of course, is also included in the set.
These are just the errors that I have noticed; there may well be others.